The Floater
by NytBloomer
Summary: This is a Protectors of the Plot Continuum spinoff. A repentant author, a talking dog and a hobbit named "Shaggins"...who knows what's next?


Protectors of the Canon; "the Floater"  
  
(A/N: Hi everyone! Thanks to Jay and Acacia for making the first Protectors of the Canon series. DEATH TO MARY-SUES and MARTY-SAMS! Death also to bad slash! (: So…in the spirit of preserving the purity and goodness of the books we all love, I've joined the Protectors. So as to not compete w/ Jay and Acacia, or any of the other Protectors out there, (and because I'm bloody stubborn) I'm doing things my own way! Btw, I do NOT own Robyn or Ranger…and I'm not 100% sure anyone can. To see the parodyfic to which I am referring for my capture…well there used to be a Sequel to "Dragon Hunter"…but I judged it a piece of unredeemable refuse and deleted it. *_* Sorry!)  
  
  
  
Chapter One: An "Easy" first assignment?  
  
"But…but…" the woman protested, tripping over her khaki robes as she tried to kneel in the ungainly things "I DIDN'T MEAN IT THAT WAY!!!!"  
  
"What way did you mean it then?" the female dragon, who was poised to eat the hapless human, asked.  
  
"Yeah, ya stinkin' Mary-Sue with a Net nickname!" the male dragon added, apparently peeved that said human hadn't bothered to use a real name of any sort in her fic.  
  
"Parody! Parody! I plead parody!" the woman cried. The Golden retriever beside her looked thoroughly confused. For one thing, last time it remembered the dragons were nesting, not on an eating rampage…and for another, that Weasley guy with the pockets full of treats had up and vanished.  
  
  
  
And so it started. The woman who barely managed to escape being eaten by Norbert and Sherbert was me. The dragons were replaced by two "Protectors of the Plot Continuum (Department of Mary-Sue)" agents. Robyn and Ranger charged me with giving Charlie Weasley a bad accent, twice, poor grammar choices (which I conceded) lack of creativity in name choice and mucking with a canon character. All charges except for the grammatical one were dropped, and so was I…right into the lap of the Marquis de Sod, Daisy in charge of Personnel.  
  
I can't say this is highly irregular anymore. It said, quirking its' petals in what I assumed was a slightly amused way. But I can say that you are our first employee with a semi-sentient partner included.  
  
Judy, my guide dog, looked highly insulted at being called semi- sentient, and proceeded to chew the edge off the pot holding the Marquis for retribution. This earned her a slightly annoyed ahem and me a pay dock. Fortunately, Judy and I are bringing in more pay now…but I'll come to that part later.  
  
As I was saying, the Marquis continued you are our first employee with a service animal. Judy looked mollified, and the Daisy continued. We are still understaffed, so you and your…companion will be on your own. I believe the best place for you, until you find your niche, is the Department of Multiple Offenses. You will be equipped and allowed brief leave to collect your things, and then will be expected to get to work when required.  
  
Since it was better than being eaten by dragons, and since Robyn and Ranger had already explained what the PPC did, I swiftly agreed. The chance to travel through fanfictiondom smiting the hell out of the unworthy sounded like a good gig to me. I had to agree to delete "When Charlie Met NytBloomer"…but since, on a second look, I agreed that it reeked like week- old dragon poop, it was a small price to pay. Of course, I added time off for gaming into my contract while the Marquis was pouting over his pot…but hey, what self-respecting gamer girl wouldn't?  
  
It took me and a few of Makes-Things moverbots only one trip to get the abundance of…stuff. This included plushies, books, CD's, my rent deposit, dog food and other dog necessities. Of course, it also included a truckload of medication, but the Marquis assured me there'd be a pharmacy at Headquarters by the time I ran out of anything.  
  
Thank God for those Moverbots. They had my new Crisis Response Center and adjoining rooms fitted out with my boatloads of crap within minutes, just about the time that Makes-Things was done adapting my equipment for low-vision use. I had just settled down with a salad and my meds when the alarm went off for the first time.  
  
"BEEEEEEP!" it shrieked, forcing me to scatter salad and pills everywhere as I jumped up. "BEEEEEP!"  
  
I pushed the offending alarm button, and my reader-out read the current assignment. It was a cleanup job for The Department of Bad Parody. I nodded approvingly. Somehow, it seemed appropriate. So, since I wasn't going into "character" as such, I stayed in my shiny new uniform, with the water-lily badge emblazoned on the jacket. I'd heard other people I passed referring to my department as "floaters"…so the water-lily made sense, I guess.  
  
With my backpack full of dog supplies, portal key, Offense Detector, my walkman, cd's and a large-print Rules and Regs copy, my dog by my side and my shotgun (self-guiding, a fun contrivance of Makes-Things) in my hand, I Portalled to the Observation Zone of the offending parody.  
  
I found myself floating in non-descript blackness as a disembodied voice, probably doing a bad impression of Cate Blanchett, droned through the intro. My sensibilities began to be offended at once. "Centre-Earth" was the first offender. As a longtime Brit-Lit fan, including the works of Professor Tolkien, I was sickened by the unforgivable attempt at Britform spelling. Then came the Names. The fact that the parody was "Lord of the Things" was redeemable…the title alone actually had the potential for something decent to come of it. But…"Sadron" "Dismildur" and "Sorebum"….I shook my head and fought down a rising swell of nausea.  
  
"Revolting, isn't it?" a somehow familiar voice beside me said. I looked down to where the voice was, and saw Judy looking at me with an eyebrow cocked in that Spock-like way she had. I squinted and pondered, as the Intro dragged on.  
  
"DILDO SHAGGINS!" Judy and I shrieked together. That, I'm fairly sure, is where I blacked out.  
  
Now I'd been warned by Robyn and Ranger that people could go insane on this job. But…for one thing I thought I was made of sterner stuff, being already of the pleasantly-mad persuasion. For another…I didn't think it would happen on the first job. But, as I soon found out, I wasn't crazy at all…just the victim of my own hyperactive imagination.  
  
"Wake up…wake up…some guy named Sandgulf…or Sandulf…is patting a secret cache of explosives!" Judy said, nudging me. Apparently, I'd missed the first actual dialogue of this putrid piece of movie-based slop.  
  
"Oh God…" I groaned. "Judy, why are you talking? Have I finally gone that crazy?"  
  
"You went that crazy when you wrote Gamer Girls, silly." Judy replied. She was referring to a short-lived "Dork Tower" style comic series portraying me and my friends…with Judy filling in the role of Carson the Muskrat. "We're in an Author Zone, so I have all the powers that you as an Author gave me. Including speech, filling out character sheets, rolling dice with my nose…"  
  
"And gloating." I murmured, getting to my feet just in time to see Sandgulf/Sandulf ride off in his wagon. I scanned back over the words of the scene I had missed, quickly, to avoid heaving all over the nondescript emptiness of this parody, which still lacked any environmental descriptions whatsoever.  
  
When my attention came back to the then-and-there, I saw "Dildo Shaggins of the Shiter" giving his "old fugitive" a welcoming kick to the groin. I immediately tallied up some more offenses in misspelling and bad Brit-Lit impersonations. As a little hobbit began "retching through the cart"…I readied my gun.  
  
Judy was sniggering at the mental images the badly turned phrase was inspiring, but I had suffered through enough of this crap. "Hey," I said, nudging my giggling guide "where's the one who spawned this torturous reek?"  
  
Rolling her eyes in exasperation, Judy gave a sniff around. "From the horrible smell, I'd say the author's thataway." She said, gesturing off to our left.  
  
I tallied up a few more offenses as we were forced to walk through more scenes of this…parody. "Scramthick Screwme", "Sandcrack" ("there's #3 in poor alternate choices for Gandalf" I muttered), insertion of Donald Duck, too many bad "thing" jokes, and the fact that I had to turn off my Offense alarm after about the first five minutes due to its' constant wailing, were but a few of the things on my list by the time we got to the "author."  
  
There it sat, a non-descript being with the non-descript name of "Japs". It was watching the dung hit the rotating blade, seeming very pleased with the entirely dialogue-based "parody" it had inflicted on the world. Consequently, it wasn't paying attention to us at all.  
  
"Ok, I know we have to charge it before I can kill it." I whispered to Judy, who seemed poised to kill. Apparently, one of the things I had unwittingly instilled in her were my own sensibilities about what should and should not be done with literature. "So you hump it's…um…leg, while I charge and shoot it."  
  
"Why don't YOU hump it's leg, and I'll charge and shoot it?" Judy countered.  
  
"Because you can't pull a trigger!" I hissed angrily. Having my guide dog argue with me at this vital moment was not my idea of an ideal situation. "You don't have any thumbs!"  
  
Judy growled and looked put upon, but acquiesced. Like a flash of golden fluffy fury, she brutally humped the leg of the offending entity.  
  
"Entity Japs!" I called, putting my shotgun to my shoulder. "You have been charged with writing bad parody, giving Gandalf three really bad names, misuse of British spellings of words, the term "shitter", and multiple typos. In addition, you are charged with disparaging the honor of Hobbits and all other denizens of MDDLE-EARTH! Thirdly, you are charged with writing a story without background descriptions or any other environment besides random doors and a cart! Do you have any last words?"  
  
"What…" the being began, only to be cut off as Judy somehow found a knee, and bit down hard. "OWWWWIEE!!"  
  
"Oh shut up!" I muttered, and shot.  
  
So ended the life of the being "Japs", at least as far as this particular piece of the Plot Continuum went. Judy was spitting and retching in disgust as we Portalled back to our CRC.  
  
"Ai my God that was disgusting!" she said, running to her water bowl, which she emptied in record time. "Remind me NEVER to bite an author again…they taste as bad as their works smell!"  
  
I sank back into the comfy chair that had been provided for my in- between job lounging pleasure, and sighed. My first assignment had been easily-dispatched, but horrible, my dog had gained the seemingly permanent power of speech and sarcasm, and I was having a strong craving for ice…of which I had none. "Why do I get the feeling that this is going to be a much different gig than I first thought?" I asked despondently.  
  
"I'm in the enviable position of not knowing why humans feel what they do." Judy replied with a grin. "So, what's for dinner?" 


End file.
